Truth & Predication

by Donald Davidson, Kevin Sharpe (Editor)

This brief book takes readers to the very heart of what it is that philosophy can do well. Completed shortly before Donald Davidson's death at 85, Truth and Predication brings full circle a journey moving from the insights of Plato and Aristotle to the problems of contemporary philosophy. In particular, Davidson, countering many of his contemporaries, argues that the concept of truth is not ambiguous, and that we need an effective theory of truth in order to live well. Davidson begins by harking back to an early interest in the classics, and an even earlier engagement with the workings of grammar; in the pleasures of diagramming sentences in grade school, he locates his first glimpse into the mechanics of how we conduct the most important activities in our life--such as declaring love, asking directions, issuing orders, and telling stories. Davidson connects these essential questions with the most basic and yet hard to understand mysteries of language use--how we connect noun to verb. This is a problem that Plato and Aristotle wrestled with, and Davidson draws on their thinking to show how an understanding of linguistic behavior is critical to the formulating of a workable concept of truth. Anchored in classical philosophy, Truth and Predication nonetheless makes telling use of the work of a great number of modern philosophers from Tarski and Dewey to Quine and Rorty. Representing the very best of Western thought, it reopens the most difficult and pressing of ancient philosophical problems, and reveals them to be very much of our day.

Genres: Philosophy, Nonfiction, Language

192 pages, Hardcover

First published May 31, 2005

About the author

Donald Davidson was one of the most important philosophers of the latter half of the twentieth century. His ideas, presented in a series of essays from the 1960's onwards, have been influential across a range of areas from semantic theory through to epistemology and ethics. Davidson's work exhibits a breadth of approach, as well as a unitary and systematic character, which is unusual within twentieth century analytic philosophy. Thus, although he acknowledged an important debt to W. V. O. Quine, Davidson's thought amalgamates influences (though these are not always explicit) from a variety of sources, including Quine, C. I. Lewis, Frank Ramsey, Immanuel Kant and the later Wittgenstein. And while often developed separately, Davidson's ideas nevertheless combine in such a way as to provide a single integrated approach to the problems of knowledge, action, language and mind. The breadth and unity of his thought, in combination with the sometimes-terse character of his prose, means that Davidson is not an easy writer to approach. Yet however demanding his work might sometimes appear, this in no way detracts from either the significance of that work or the influence it has exercised and will undoubtedly continue to exercise. Indeed, in the hands of Richard Rorty and others, and through the widespread translation of his writings, Davidson's ideas have reached an audience that extends far beyond the confines of English-speaking analytic philosophy. Of late twentieth century American philosophers, perhaps only Quine has had a similar reception and influence.

Donald Herbert Davidson was born on March 6th, 1917, in Springfield, Massachusetts, USA. He died suddenly, as a consequence of cardiac arrest following knee surgery, on Aug. 30, 2003, in Berkeley, California. Remaining both physically and philosophically active up until his death, Davidson left behind behind a number of important and unfinished projects including a major book on the nature of predication. The latter volume was published posthumously (see Davidson, 2005b), together with two additional volumes of collected essays (Davidson 2004, 2005a), under the guidance of Marcia Cavell.

Davidson completed his undergraduate study at Harvard, graduating in 1939. His early interests were in literature and classics and, as an undergraduate, Davidson was strongly influenced by A. N. Whitehead. After starting graduate work in classical philosophy (completing a Master's degree in 1941), Davidson's studies were interrupted by service with the US Navy in the Mediterranean from 1942-45. He continued work in classical philosophy after the war, graduating from Harvard in 1949 with a dissertation on Plato's ‘Philebus’ (1990b). By this time, however, the direction of Davidson's thinking had already, under Quine's influence, changed quite dramatically (the two having first met at Harvard in 1939-40) and he had begun to move away from the largely literary and historical concerns that had preoccupied him as an undergraduate towards a more strongly analytical approach.

While his first position was at Queen's College in New York, Davidson spent much of the early part of his career (1951-1967) at Stanford University. He subsequently held positions at Princeton (1967-1970), Rockefeller (1970-1976), and the University of Chicago (1976-1981). From 1981 until his death he worked at the University of California, Berkeley. Davidson was the recipient of a number of award and fellowships and was a visitor at many universities around the world. Davidson was twice married, with his second marriage, in 1984, being to Marcia Cavell.

-http://plato.stanford.edu/entries/dav...

Reviews

[Isaac Carcacía]

A nivel estilístico hay algo que no me convence. Quizá es el hecho de ser oralidad transcrita. A nivel de contenido estoy de acuerdo en que analizar las propiedades formales de algo como la verdad no da una explicación entera y absoluta de qué es. Muchas propiedades pueden tener la misma estructura formal. También considero oportuno quitar parte del enfoque más apriori o fundamental sobre qué es la verdad y verlo más como una práctica concreta que no siempre se puede expresar directamente con el lenguaje. Para interpretar el lenguaje o saber las condiciones de verdad es necesario ir más allá del propio lenguaje a las prácticas concretas. No obstante, creo que la vinculación que hace con el significado reduce demasiado el significado a algo "descriptivo" y no una realidad más compleja que sirve para más que decir oraciones capaces de verdad o falsedad.

En cuanto a la predicación creo que su intento de enfocarlo desde la verdad y la satisfacción Tarskiana no me convence. Estoy de acuerdo en que quizá hay que dejar de lado debates metafísicos sobre predicados y particulares, pero no creo que su solución sea la mejor. En este sentido estoy más de acuerdo con posturas más Fregeanas o de Agustín Rayo donde la semántica va más a los hechos y oraciones completas. No hay una separación grande entre predicsdos y constantes más que a un nivel convencional. Lo importante es que tengamos mecanismos objetivos para asignar verdaderas a oraciones. Ya si luego uno quiere decir que eso es porque describen estados del mundo entero o porque se corresponden a ciertos tropos (propiedades o estados de cosas concretas), pues es otro tema. Quizá no soy tan fan de los último pues creo que se puede hablar de verdad de oraciones como "las cargas eléctricas del mismo signo se repelen" que no predican algo de un sujeto (al menos desde una formalizacióm actual heredera de Frege y contraria a Aristóteles). Aquí mi posición es la del ultrarealismo que defendí en un artículo. La realidad tiene múltiples estructuras a la vez, simplemente no se contradicen o se oponen. El mundo es igual al decir que "Sócrates murió" a que "La muerte ocurrió socráticamente". Lo importante no es dibla predicación representa estructuras de realidad separadas que se unifican de forma extraña, si no que lo importante y objetivo es que la realidad hace verdad esa afirmación. Y ese hacer verdad no es algo que se explique lingüísticamente o que tenga que ver con unas cosas misteriosas llamaas hacedores de verdad. Simplemente es una cosa que podemos conocer y que no se explica o reduce de otra forma. Sabemos que el gato está sobre la alfombra, no hace falta explicarlo postulando gatos, alfombras y una relación de "estar en". Esa es una forma de parcelar la realidad, pero hay otras. Lo que ofrece la realidad es la verdad de la oración como tal. Las condiciones de verdad y falsedad están dadas de antes. No hay que explicar la verdad o la falsedad. La botella está abierta y la mosca puede salir.

[Leo Espluga]

Es el primer libro de filosofía analítica y del lenguaje puro y jo der. Que manera de sufrir, hay momentos donde he captado cosas y me ha parecido de mucho interés. Eso sí, el viaje ha sido duro, duro. Me quedo con ganas de leer más sobre esta filosofía, que pese que escapa de mi interés principal, creo que dota de una profundidad necesaria la concepción de las cosas.